Custom garage doors in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, picked with Clay, down to the handles.

Why put this much thought into a garage door?

Because on a lot of houses it’s the biggest thing on the front. When the garage faces the street, its doors can make up more than half of what people see from the curb. That’s a lot of house to leave to whatever happened to be in stock.

It’s also a hard thing to choose. People in the trade say garage doors are the hardest product there is to sell, because the options never run out. Clay’s job is narrowing them down.

Where do the choices start?

• Wood, or the look of wood. Anything from stamped steel to real stained wood, on the wood and carriage house doors page.
• Glass. In any panel, tempered or decorative: garage doors with windows.
• Solid. For privacy and steady insulation: garage doors without windows.
• Hardware. Handles, hinges and trim, on the decorative hardware page.

What does Clay bring to it?

An eye for the finish work. Clay curates doors with custom handles and with wood finishes or stains, and he’s the person to talk to about the doors from Amarr, Carriage House Doors and National PreFinish. He grew up helping on his father’s jobs, so the mechanical side comes with the design side: a door that looks right also has to balance, seal and run on the opener it’s paired with.

Chad Caro, who founded Kingdom Doors in 2008 and has been in garage doors since 1994, handles plenty of the hanging. Father and son work the bigger jobs side by side.

Do you work with builders?

Yes. Builders can open an account with us, and homeowners building a custom house can bring us in through their builder or on their own. Either way it helps to talk about the door before the framing is done, since the opening size and the headroom decide what’s possible.

What should you decide first?

The material, because it sets the budget for everything after it. Stamped steel, a composite overlay and real wood sit at very different prices, and once that’s settled the other choices fall into place faster.

Glass comes second. Daylight in the garage means glass, steady insulation and privacy mean a solid door, and an office or living space out there means insulated glass, which costs more. Hardware is last, and it’s where a modest door can pick up a lot of character for a small share of the price.

One more thing belongs on the list early: the weight. A heavy custom door needs springs and an opener chosen for it, and a real wood door usually calls for a commercial-style unit. It’s much easier to plan for that than to find out on install day.